Hello,

My son's 740 wagon has a tailgate that will not open. Suggestions on how I can open it without major damage would be appreciated.

Here are the symptoms:

1/ I can use a key to lock and unlock, when unlocked the lever on the outside does not engage anything and moves freely. The same symptoms locking and unlocking with eth power locks.

2/ When locked, I can feel pushing on something when I try to press the door handle lever, however it does not give and unlatch the tailgate.

Thank you in advance.

 

how about the lever on the inside? does that work?

me thinks you'll need to get the inside panel off to fix it... and if you can't get it open, removing the 4 plastic 1/4 turn fasteners along the bottom of the inside panel will be, well, challenging. once you get those off, the inside panel swings inwards from the bottom then lifts off the clips along the top. after that you can access the mechanism.

here's the parts diagram for a 7/9 wagon tailgate locking mechanism.


key(12) or electric lock (29) lifts pushrod 23 which blocks or unblocks the latch 17 the outside lever is on piece 1, while the inside lever is 25, and this works the actual latch 17.

I'm betting its something to do with pushrod 22 or its little lever mechanisms 10,11,18. the inside lever 25 is much more direct drive on the latch than the outside lever 1. of course, it could be something entirely different like a broken bit on mechanism 17.

 

First, make sure it's not just stuck--sometimes from lack of use the rubber seal just sticks to the frame. Helps if you have the car parked facing downhill.
If stuck is not the case, then you can remove the handle panel and this will give you some access to the innards. Pop off the plastic trim surrounding the handle, unscrew the two torx screws, reach in...

 

Be very careful while doing that. You may need some thing longish screw drivers to help with that. I thin that there are grooves that you can slide them up to help release the trim.

 

the 7/9 wagon handle trim is no longer available in grey. :-/

I'm seeing if I can get it in black. black trim goes with anything

 

Pierce, Lev, T Joe,

Thank you all, the important thing is that I should be able to get the inside panel off with the tailgate closed. Worst case, I have a 1990 740 GLE wagon as parts car that we kept after my son crashed it - which is too bad, he was getting a real nice mileage on it - just below 30mpg on highway...

His current car is 1989 740 torbo wagon on outside with 1990 interior. We swapped the interiors, as that crashed car's interior was in real nice shape. This is my project for this weekend.. , along with new water pump and new front seals and belts.. should keep me busy for a " couple of hours"....